Part 74 (1/2)

Concerning the faculty of presensation, it is worth while to say a little more. The early mesmerists made a great point of the power of some patients to diagnose the condition of another. Dr. Puysegur's patient Joly, mentioned above, possessed the faculty to an unusual degree. He was an educated man, of good position, and could express himself intelligibly:--

C'est une sensation veritable que j'eprouve dans un endroit correspondant a la partie qui souffre chez celui que je touche: ma main va naturellement se porter a l'endroit de son mal, et je ne peux pas plus m'y tromper que je ne pourrois le faire en portant ma main ou je souffrirois moi-meme.

Now, the following experiment has been carried out by Charcot at La Salpetriere. A young girl suffering from hysterical hemiplegia (paralysis of one side) came up one day from the country. She was placed in a chair behind a screen and a hypnotic patient sent for from the wards. The latter was placed on the other side of the screen and hypnotised. Neither of the patients was aware of the other's presence. At the end of a minute the hypnotised patient was found to have acquired the other's hemiplegia. The experiment was repeated every day, and in four days the new comer was relieved of her trouble, which had lasted over a year. The same experiment was tried in many cases, and always succeeded, although in some of them the affections imitated were of a very complex character, such as paralysis of half the tongue. With these facts in view, the alleged experiences of the older mesmerists appear by no means impossible.

APPENDICES

I. IN DEFENCE OF A GREAT AND BELOVED POET WHOSE CHARACTER IS DELINEATED IN THIS STORY.

II. A KEY TO ”AYLWIN,” BY THOMAS ST. E. HAKE, REPRINTED FROM ”NOTES AND QUERIES.”

APPENDIX I

D. G. R.

Thou knewest that island, far away and lone, Whose sh.o.r.es are as a harp, where billows break In spray of music and the breezes shake O'er spicy seas a woof of colour and tone, While that sweet music echoes like a moan In the island's heart, and sighs around the lake, Where, watching fearfully a watchful snake.

A damsel weeps upon her emerald throne.

Life's ocean, breaking round thy senses' sh.o.r.e, Struck golden song, as from the strand of Day: For us the joy, for thee the fell foe lay-- Pain's blinking snake around the fair isle's core, Turning to sighs the enchanted sounds that play Around thy lovely island evermore.

Certain remarks that have been made upon the character of _D'Arcy_ in _Aylwin_ have rendered it an imperative--nay, a sacred--duty for the author to seize an opportunity that may never occur again of saying here a few words upon the subject.

It is universally acknowledged that characters in fiction are not creations projected from the author's inner consciousness, but are founded more or less upon characters that he was brought into contact with in real life.

Mr. A. C. Benson, in his monograph on D. G. Rossetti, in _English Men of Letters_, says, 'It was for a long time hoped that Mr.

Watts-Dunton would give the memoir of his great friend to the world, but there is such a thing as knowing a man too well to be his biographer. It is, however, an open secret that a vivid sketch of Rossetti's personality has been given to the world in Mr.

Watts-Dunton's well-known romance _Aylwin_, where the artist D'Arcy is drawn from Rossetti.'

Since the appearance of these words many people who take an increasing interest in the most mysterious and romantic figure in the artistic world of the mid-Victorian period, have urged the author to tell them whether the portrait of Rossetti in _Aylwin_ is a true one, or whether it is not idealized as certain cynical critics have affirmed. Nothing but the dread of being charged with egotism has prevented the author's stating publicly, and once for all, that the portrait of Rossetti in _Aylwin_ showing him to be the creature of varying moods, gay and even frolicsome at one moment, profoundly meditative at the next, deeply dejected at the next, but always the most winsome of men, is true to the life. It is more than hinted in the story that _D'Arcy's_ melancholy was the result of the loss of one he deeply loved. From such a loss it was that Rossetti's melancholy moods resulted. There are doc.u.mentary evidences of the verisimilitude of the picture in every respect. Let one be given out of many. There exists a pathetic record that has never yet been published, by one who knew Rossetti--knew him with special intimacy--the poet Swinburne--depicting the great tragedy which darkened Rossetti's life--the loss of his wife.

It gives the only authorized account of that tragedy--a tragedy which ever since the publication of William Bell Scott's _Autobiographical Notes_ has been so grievously misunderstood and misrepresented. In this narrative Swinburne tells how, when first introduced to Rossetti, he himself was an Oxford undergraduate of twenty. He records how he and Rossetti had lived on terms of affectionate intimacy: shaped and coloured on Rossetti's side by the cordial kindness and exuberant generosity which, to the last, distinguished his recognition of younger men's efforts: on his (Swinburne's) part by grat.i.tude as loyal and admiration as fervent as ever strove and ever failed to express 'all the sweet and sudden pa.s.sion of youth towards greatness in its elder.' He records how, during that year, he had come to know, and to regard with little less than a brother's affection, the n.o.ble lady whom Rossetti had recently married. He records how on the evening of her terrible death, they all three had dined together at a restaurant which Rossetti had been accustomed to frequent. He records how next morning, on coming by appointment to sit for his portrait, he heard that she had died in the night, under circ.u.mstances which afterwards made necessary his (Swinburne's) appearance and evidence at the inquest held on her remains. He dwells upon the anguish of the widower, when next they met, under the roof of the mother with whom he had sought refuge. He records how Rossetti appealed to his friends.h.i.+p in the name of the dead lady's regard for him--a regard such as she had felt for no other of Rossetti's friends--to cleave to him in this time of sorrow, to come and keep house with him as soon as a residence could be found.

Can there be a more convincing and a more beautiful testimony as to a friend's sorrow and its cause?

Over and above the touching testimony of Swinburne, no one will deny that if ever one man knew another too well to be his biographer, as Mr. Benson says, the author of _Aylwin_ was that man with regard to Rossetti. No one has ever ventured to challenge the a.s.sertion in the article on Rossetti in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ that there was a time when with the exception of his own family the poet-painter saw scarcely any one save the writer of this book, whom he was never tired of designating his friend of friends. There is no need to multiply instances of this friends.h.i.+p, which has been enlarged upon by Rossetti's brother, and by many others. Elizabeth Luther Gary, in the best of all the books upon Rossetti, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons two years after the first edition of _Aylwin_, speaks of _D'Arcy_ as being 'the mouthpiece of Rossetti.'

It may be added that Rossetti's _Ballads and Sonnets_, published in 1882, were dedicated to the author in these words: 'To the Friend whom my verse won for me, these few more pages are affectionately inscribed.' When he drew his last breath at Birchington it was in that friend's arms. It is necessary to dwell upon such facts as the above to show how fully equipped is the author of _Aylwin_ for understanding and depicting the great poet-painter, to whose memory he addressed the sonnet at the head of this note.

As to the personality of Rossetti, to which Mr. Benson alludes, to say that it was the one that stood out among the lives of the Victorian poets is to state the case very feebly. It has been the fortune of the delineator of D'Arcy to be thrown intimately across several of the great poets of his time, not one of whom displayed a personality so dominant as Rossetti's. Fine as is Rossetti's poetry and fine as are his paintings, they but inadequately represent the man. As to his personal fascination, among all the poets of England we have no record of anything equal to it. It a.s.serted itself not only in relation to the pre-Raphaelite group, but in relation to all other members of society with whom he was brought into contact. To describe the magnetism of such a man is, of course, impossible. Much has been written upon what is called the _demonic_ power in certain individuals--the power of casting one's own influence over all others. Napoleon's case is generally instanced as a typical one. But Napoleon's demonic power was of a self-conscious kind. It would seem, however, that there is another kind of demonic power--the power of shedding quite unconsciously one's personality upon all brought into contact with it. The demonic power of Rossetti, like that of _D'Arcy_ in this story, was quite unconscious. In Rossetti's presence, as in _D'Arcy's_, it was impossible not to yield to this strange, mysterious power. At the time when he was not so entirely reclusive as he afterwards became, when he used to meet all sorts of people, the author had many opportunities of noticing its effect upon others.

He has seen them try to resist it, and in vain. On a certain occasion a very eminent man, much used to society, and much used to the brilliant literary clubs of London, was quite cowed and silenced before Rossetti. It is necessary to dwell upon these subtle distinctions, because this is the D'Arcy who, as a critic has remarked, 'is the real protagonist of _Aylwin_--although the reader does not discover it until the very end of the story, where D'Arcy is the character who unravels and explains all.' Without D'Arcy, indeed, and the demonic power possessed by him, the story would have no existence.

It is, of course, in the ill.u.s.trated editions of _Aylwin_ that D'Arcy's identification with Rossetti and his importance in the story become specially manifest. On page 204 of the ill.u.s.trated editions an exact picture has been given by Rossetti's pupil, Dunn, of the famous studio at 16 Cheyne Walk--the studio which will always be a.s.sociated with Rossetti's name. It has been immortalized by his friend, Dr.